This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"! Starting in May 2016, many of the reviews for new feature films have been done on a hosted Wordpress site, and this blog now mostly does shorts and older films.

About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Lifetime film "To Be Fat Like Me" examines what filmmakers go through, as much as it examines social prejudice

An ambitious teenage girl Alyson (Kaley Cuoco) is the star of a high school fast-pitch women’s softball team (that says the high school is well off, doesn’t it) and then hurts her knee sliding into second base to break up a double play. She has been trying to go for an athletic college scholarship, a real plus for women’s sports; her family has no money to send her because her mother spent the family’s savings being treated for bulimia. She blames her Mother (Caroline Rhea) for lack of “personal responsibility” and says she speaks “the truth”. Her dad (Carlo Marks?) has the job of maintain family cohesion against the demands of individualism. Her nerdy kid brother is already the target of bullies because he is overweight and physically behind.

So, she comes up with another gig. An English teacher comes up with the idea of making a documentary film for a term paper (high schools can do that now; that happened when I subbed). She decides to put on the heavy makeup and a foam fat suit, go to summer school and take AP biochemistry, wear a hidden camera and make a documentary of the kids’ reactions. She thinks that her engaging personality will win her over, but she is in for a lesson in “real life”.

Such is the premise of the (Canadian) Lifetime Channel and Ardmore Productions film “To Be Fat Like Me”, directed by Doulgas Barr.

Even the AP kids are nasty (one calls “Moo” to her); in real life, when I subbed, I found that they would never be; they were wonderful. But gradually, she makes friends. One particular guy (I think it was Kyle, played by Richard Harmon) is particularly spectacular (rather resembling Tom Welling), and says he still likes her as a friend but would be turned off romantically if she really was overweight.

Toward the end, her Mother finds out about her “secret” film project and resents the idea that her daughter is really making a film about her!

Is this movie really a film about filmmaking and what actors go through (makeup) to become other characters? It is; the makeup and fat suit are amazing. It’s more about expression than it is about social attitudes concerning obesity.

The script mentions the book "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin, which was another experiment at a masquerade; that book also got mentioned in Joe Steffan's "Honor Bound."

The entire 2007 film is available in pieces on YouTube from OldSchollGuy2619.

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